Emotions hurt so much...

Thank you for the link. Yeah I guess it can be a bit like that. I’m also finding recently, that rather than not getting anxious, it’s more that I focus my anxieties on components rather than the whole, if that makes sense? I don’t have a generalised anxiety about a certain thing BUT I will have an anxiety about one or more small parts of a thing. 

Kitsune Saw this & thought of you...

https://twitter.com/ASmallFiction/status/1211880392141094912

I paraphrase it as:

From inside an egg it's hard to tell the difference

between a shell starting to crack

and a world falling apart

I agree, modern day films arent for me either. I adore the films from the 30s - 50s. 

Moana - me too

Watership Down - even the music will get me choked up!

Frozen - 'Do you want to build a snowman?' Also, I realised that it's an allegory about autism... just replace 'ability to freeze stuff' with 'autism' and 'boom' there you are...

I'm intrigued by fellow aspies who have extra intense emotions ... because I, myself, am the total opposite. I'm hyposensitive, rather than hypersensitive, to my emotions to such an extent that I don't feel them at all. I'm VERY alexithymic. So it intrigues me to hear from aspies who have it the opposite way. 

This means I don't get the pain and distress of intense negative emotions. But I also miss out on happiness, joy, and love, whatever those things are anyways, besides dictionary definitions.

Sometimes I have no emotions to films and TV then other times I'm terribly emotional. My nan used to lend me stories about troubled families and their hardship. Often I would avoid reading them as I did not want to feel so sad and I would see the stories in my dreams. However I do read them now as they help me understand my feelings and those of others. Crying realeses any stress that has built up. In my head I continue the stories once I have finished the book or film. I use the emotions to empathise with others when talking to them and it builds better friendships. You're brilliant as you are. Everyone has different experiences and perceptions. 

Trails make everything better. Trail or mountain running is the only time I feel like everything makes sense and the input is 100% good (except when I fall over).

Original Prankster said:

feel like there's a deep well of pain trapped inside me and it's constantly on the brink of bursting out if the slightest crack* opens up in the walls I've built around it.

...This is true for Myself, too, - BUT - I just kind of treat it like an 'extra limb', or something, the way that Actors do. -- E.G. -Some actors can genuinely "cry" on Cue, by thinking about a "sad thing" in their lives. This is opposed to actors who can only "cry" by having drops added into their eyes...

...Um, sorry, I am uncertain of what point I am trying to make, here... (!) Maybe that 'sadness is a part of life', or something, but I would not invite it, Thanks...

Happy New Year/Decade, from Me!

(P.S. - On Christmas Day TV, I also cried a bit at "Moana", and then at "Finding Dory", I could not believe I did that. For Myself, just like with "Watership Down", I think that it is *Background Music in Full Orchestration*, plus a sad event, that does it for Myself. Also certain Old Movies. It is Sooooooo annoying...!)

the running is really good for you, keep doing that - it's a type of meditation ( honest ) and  that is working for u. It reduces the thoughts.

Personally I think it’s a mixture of two things. Firstly, I don’t have typical emotional responses or typical awareness of emotional responses to events or situations that would be expected to cause an emotional response and that later, in hindsight, I can see did cause a response of some description, I just didn’t feel it. Secondly, I do sometimes feel. I can hurt, emotionally. But I learned many years ago (bare in mind I had a ABI in March 07 so have been aware of having different neurology prior to my Autism diagnosis) that I could use my neurology to detach myself emotionally from things that caused me hurt. I learned that I could very effectively suppress my feelings and be emotionless.

Two contrasting concepts perhaps? On one hand not feeling emotions ‘typically’, on the other hand purposefully suppressing and detaching from emotions. Yet, I have enough self awareness to know that both of those processes occur in me at different times. Complicated!

Original Plonker?

Original Puker?

OK, now I'm trying to work out what the suggested name-change is...

Original P-illoc-k?

Original P-ric-k?

Orignal P-???-k...

As for 'projecting my own emotional difficulties onto other people' I would say I respond to issues raised by other people based on my own experience...

Given the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for ASD starts:

"Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, ranging, for example, from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation; to reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect; to failure to initiate or respond to social interactions."

I guess it's wouldn't be surprising if I 'project' my own emotional responses though, as I have no way of recognising or understanding other people's.

100% Kitsune...

I think it's the 'build a protective shell' response that has lead to autistics getting the reputation of being emotionless/having no empathy - we just can't afford to.

Emotional overload, same as sensory overload... NTs just either aren't affected as deeply or are able to more easily 'shrug it off' and get on with their lives...

I feel like there's a deep well of pain trapped inside me and it's constantly on the brink of bursting out if the slightest crack* opens up in the walls I've built around it. (Sorry the quote function won’t work properly for me at the moment!)

The longer that I continue in my post diagnostic journey, the more I realise that the above sentence probably applies to me too!

Over on Facebook ‘the girl with the curly hair project’ has a new song ready to release next year 

Does this resonate with you?

Original Prankster said:

Feeling stuff just hurts so much sometimes. No wonder I have a reputation for being 'cold and heartless', I just can't afford to risk the pain.

NAS49761 8 months ago in reply to NAS49761

What is interesting  though is that I can be highly emotionally reactive  myself to things, especially sensory overload but didn't understand this very well either until I learned more about emotions from my OT.

So not only is there the difficulty understanding other people's emotions, there is also the difficulty understanding my own. 

Original Prankster 8 months ago

The other thing is I find it really hard to be around people who are highly emotional it triggers an 'escape' but also a 'disgust' reaction, much like if they were covered in vomit or faeces... I think this is a subversion of that reaction to potential biological/disease contamination... I don't want to risk 'emotional contamination'...

Ah, maybe that's it, I've felt for some time you should change your site name to 'Original P***k but maybe you just project(ile) your own emotional difficulties onto other people.

Cheers DC... it's nice to know this is 'normal' for us and to have someone understand.

Have a great festive season!

Glad Greetings to Neekby from Myself! Sorry if no-one else has replied yet, so this is one from Me, and maybe others better will follow. But if it helps, of course You are not alone. For a change, I can say that Autism does make it a bit more intense, as We take everthing at face value and try to give that back ... i.e. Honesty.

There are certain films which I watch and they WILL make Me cry, proper tissues needed crying... and most stuff made nowadays is just too awful to watch, so, I watch very little nowadays. It is annoying, though... 

As soon as I see a film or thing which begins to turn Me towards uncomfortable emotions, then I will stop watching right then and there, just like "a little child who hides behind the sofa"...! I am not ashamed, though, and I simply explain all of it with logic and detail... and then that causes persons to think about the conveyed emotions properly. This current society is a lot towards finding the discomfort of others as entertainment... yet there is recuperation found in the "happy ending"...

Original Prankster said:

Feeling stuff just hurts so much sometimes. No wonder I have a reputation for being 'cold and heartless', I just can't afford to risk the pain.

...This is a thing which is said about Autistic Persons a lot, and so, in this Thread, You have stated a lot of things explaining themselves, there. Like I said... You are not alone, so I hope this Post is helpful towards that. Just keep all of that in mind - do not worry so much if Allistic Persons (non-autistics) find it "funny". Explain Yourself logically and with authority, and be strengthened by that.

...P.S.- Happy New Year!